By: Yusuf M Hasan
Somalilandsun – The UN Special representative to Somaliland and Somalia should stop falsifying facts on the ground during reports to the United Nations Security Council-UNSC.
According to the Somaliland interior minister Ali Mohamed Waran’ade the quarterly report presented to the UNSC by Ambassador Nicholas Kay the head of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Somalia (UNSOM) on the 10th December 2013 to the prevailing political status in Somaliland was false and lacked basis thus totally misleading.
In his lengthily multi- page report in which he preserved only a paragraph to Somaliland Amb Kay informed the UNSC, “In Somaliland, differences have developed between the Government and the opposition. Opposition figures, including the Speaker of Somaliland’s Parliament, Abdurahman Irro, have on occasion been arrested or prevented from travelling. We shall keep watch on the situation in Somaliland, which is heading into general elections in 2015. But since Somaliland continues to reject UNSOM’s mandate, our operations there remain on hold”
In an interview contacted through Telephone by Dawan media group Minister Waran’ade who is in the UK on official duties said that the Republic of Somaliland, its authorities and citizens are very much concerned by the false information Amb Kay is banding around.
“To my better informed knowledge there have been no arrests of senior politicians in the country let alone that of the Honourable speaker of Somaliland parliament Abdirahman Irro as purported by the very uninformed Amb Kay and his UNSOM” said Waran’ade
As he acknowledged that the presidential hopeful of opposition political party UCID Jamal Ali Hussein was barred from holding a function in Gabile town, the interior minister said that though he was abroad during the incident his officers prevented the UCID hopeful because he was intent on conducting election campaigns without a permit not to mention that presidential elections shall be held in 2015.
Revealing that the administration shall pursue avenues of garnering knowledge from UNSOM on how it attained its very erroneous information on the prevailing political situation which it UNSOM and he Amb Kay “shall keep watch as the country heads into General elections in 2015”, Waran’ade urged restraint on the UN body as pertains to insinuations geared towards tarnishing Somaliland’s achievements and sovereignty.
Since assuming office as replacement of Ambassador Augustine Mahiga, Nicholas Kay has been at loggerheads with the administration of president Ahmed Mahmud Silanyo of Somaliland which denied Kay’s UNSOM an operational Base in Hargeisa after arguing that the UNSOM mandate was entirely Somalia related thence nothing to do with Somaliland.
Somaliland which withdrew from its 1960 voluntary later turned ugly union with Somalia in 1991 following a brutal civil war with forces loyal to Dictator Siad Barre in which over 60,000 somalilanders were butchered continues to thrive for international recognition while its former partner Somalia continues to thrive in shambles and anarchy.
Though Somaliland has become a model for other third world countries through its apt democratization process that has seen two presidential and local council elections and one parliamentary conducted peacefully to international acclaim not to mention attaining peace and security in the very turbulent Horn region Amb Kay in his vengeance against refusal of his UNSOM base in the country continues to lump Somaliland with other regional administrations of the Somalia.
In his December 10 briefing to the UNSC Amb Kay outlined his four phased immediate plan of action namely “First the need for wide-ranging national and local reconciliation; secondly, a redrawing of Somalia’s political map of eighteen regions into a lesser number of federal member states; thirdly, the finalizing of a new and permanent constitution; and fourthly, democratic elections in all Somalia in 2016 (the first for nearly 50 years)”
The ambassador’s venom against Somaliland is visibly clear he, having informed on plans to redraw the political map of Somalia as pertains to the “18 regions” a clear reference to the number of regions including the five from Somaliland (North west, Sanaag, Sool, Toghdeer and Awdal) that together with 13 from Italian Somalia were foundations of the collapsed Republic of Somalia.
A Further Kay reprisal against president Silanyo’s refusal to facilitate UNSOM operational base in Somaliland can be discerned by his indication that his forthcoming four pronged plan for Somalia is in partnership with the weak internationally propped government in Mogadishu.
Knowing clearly the irrevocability of Somaliland’s sovereignty and the abhorrence of its citizens on insinuations that their affairs are not actually controlled in Hargeisa their capital city but in the Terrorists infested Mogadishu Ambassador Nicholas Kay reported to the UNSC, “On each of these tasks, the UN is actively and increasingly engaged in support of the Federal Government and in close collaboration with member states”
While the statement by Somaliland interior minister Ali Waran’ade has seemingly placed the enormous task of proving his false reports to the UNSC, it remains a matter of national importance that Amb Kay be put to task for relevant evidence and in lieu an official apology just as Mahiga his predecessor did following insinuations that Somaliland was a region of Somalia.
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